FLSA exemption classification checklist

Not legal advice: consult employment counsel. This page is general information to help an employer organise a classification review. It is not a determination about any role, and every statement below is attributed to the federal source page we read on the date shown.

What this page adds

Where classification, regular-rate and records exposure typically sits is already covered in where wage-and-hour exposure actually sits, what an audit asks for in what a DOL or EEOC audit asks for, and what changes across state lines in what changes when you employ across state lines. This page is the lookup that sits beside them: the federal tests, in order, as a checklist you can run against a role list.

Step 1: the salary basis test

Salary basis means the employee regularly receives a predetermined amount each pay period that cannot be reduced because of the quality or quantity of work, and receives the full salary for any week in which any work is performed (29 CFR 541.602(a), retrieved 14 Oct 2026). The same section lists limited situations where deductions are allowed, such as full-day absences for personal reasons, and states that up to 10 percent of the required salary level can be met by nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions paid at least annually (541.602(a)(3)). Pay practices that dock partial days are where this test most often needs a closer look.

Step 2: the salary level test

The eCFR text of 29 CFR 541.600(a), retrieved 14 Oct 2026, states a salary of not less than $684 per week, with $455 per week for non-federal employers in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and $380 per week in American Samoa. The same section converts $684 per week to $1,368 biweekly, $1,482 semimonthly and $2,964 monthly. Paragraph (b) gives the pay-period conversions above, and paragraphs (c) to (e) name salary-level exceptions, for example for teachers and for practising lawyers and physicians. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet 17A (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) is marked revised September 2019 and states the same $684 figure. We read no page that discusses later rulemaking or court decisions about the salary level, so confirm current threshold with DOL before relying on any figure on this page.

A separate test exists for highly compensated employees. The text of 29 CFR 541.601 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states total annual compensation of at least $107,432, including at least $684 per week paid on a salary or fee basis, and requires the employee to customarily and regularly perform at least one exempt duty of an executive, administrative or professional employee.

Step 3: the duties test, by exemption

Executive, per 29 CFR 541.100 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026): the primary duty is management of the enterprise or a recognised department or subdivision; the employee customarily and regularly directs two or more other employees; and the employee has authority to hire or fire, or their recommendations on hiring, firing or promotion are given particular weight.

Administrative, per 29 CFR 541.200 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026): the primary duty is office or non-manual work directly related to management or general business operations of the employer or its customers, and that primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.

Professional, per 29 CFR 541.300 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026): the primary duty is either work requiring advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialised instruction (learned professional), or work requiring invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognised artistic or creative field (creative professional). Computer and outside sales exemptions also exist; DOL’s Fact Sheet 17A summarises them, but we did not read their regulation text, so they are not tested here.

What “primary duty” means in practice

29 CFR 541.700 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) defines primary duty as the principal, main, major or most important duty, determined from all the facts with the greatest weight on the character of the job as a whole. It lists the relative importance of exempt duties, time spent on exempt work, freedom from direct supervision, and the relationship of salary to the wages of non-exempt employees doing similar work. It treats more than 50 percent of time on exempt work as a useful guide that will generally satisfy the test, but not a hard requirement either way.

On titles, 29 CFR 541.2 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states that a job title alone is insufficient to establish exempt status; the employee’s actual duties and salary must meet the requirements of the regulations.

Overtime basics for the non-exempt roles

Under 29 CFR 778.107 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026), overtime is paid at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate. 29 CFR 778.108 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states that the regular rate is a matter of fact, not of label, and that under section 7(e) it includes all remuneration for employment except the statutory exclusions. The DOL’s overtime page (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states the general rule for covered non-exempt employees as time and one-half the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek.

Recordkeeping for exempt and non-exempt roles

Part 516 sets different record sets for the two groups. For employees treated as bona fide executive, administrative or professional, 29 CFR 516.3 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) requires the general identifying information of 516.2(a), excluding items (a)(6) to (a)(10), plus a record of the basis on which wages are paid in sufficient detail to compute total compensation each pay period. For non-exempt employees, 29 CFR 516.2 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) lists twelve items including hours worked each workday and workweek, regular hourly rate in overtime weeks, straight-time earnings, overtime premium pay, additions to and deductions from wages, total wages paid and the date of payment.

On retention, 29 CFR 516.5 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states payroll records and certain agreements are kept for at least three years, and 29 CFR 516.6 (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states time cards, wage rate tables, order, shipping and billing records and wage addition and deduction records are kept for at least two years.

The state-law caveat

DOL’s Fact Sheet 17A (retrieved 14 Oct 2026) states that the FLSA sets minimum standards and that where federal, state or municipal law provides a higher minimum wage or a lower maximum workweek, the employer must follow the stricter rule. We did not read any state agency page for this checklist, so we state no state figure, test or threshold. Run the federal checklist first, then test each role against the rules of the state where the person works, using that state’s agency page or counsel.

Where misclassification risk tends to concentrate

The federal pages above do not rank risk, so the following is a way to organise a review, not a finding. Each area maps to a test we cite: roles classified by title rather than duties (541.2), salaried supervisors who do not direct two or more employees or lack hiring and firing weight (541.100), administrative roles that follow procedures rather than exercise independent judgment (541.200), salaries at or near the stated level, including any reliance on bonus credit (541.600 and 541.602), pay practices that dock partial days (541.602), and overtime calculated on a base rate when other remuneration belongs in the regular rate (778.108).

What we could not confirm

We could not read the DOL overtime rulemaking page (HTTP 403) or the DOL state minimum wage page (HTTP 404), and the DOL overtime and Fact Sheet 17A pages we did read do not discuss recent rulemaking or court decisions on the salary level. We therefore cannot say whether any pending or recent change affects the $684 figure; confirm the current threshold with DOL. We did not read the regulation text for computer employees (541.400) or outside sales employees (541.500), so we give no test for them. We read no state agency page, so no state specifics are stated. Nothing here is filled in from memory.

Where this sits

Where this sits: classification is one of the checks that follows a headcount milestone. For the leave obligations that start at 50 employees, see the FMLA employer guide.

Where this sits: before any role reaches the exempt or non-exempt question, the worker has to be an employee. The federal sources on that earlier question are in the contractor vs. employee classification guide.

Where this sits: the same headcount milestones bring EEO duties of their own (coverage thresholds, the EEO-1 report, record retention), which are in the EEOC obligations guide.